Comments on: A quote I like, and a book recommendation.

By: Ivan

Ivan — Wed, 28 Sep 2011 02:33:07 +0000

this is one of those situations in which having a trusted friend to help field questions might be a good idea.

Very much agree with Athena…….we need some kind of AAC.

Ivan

By: Athena Cosine Theta

Athena Cosine Theta — Thu, 22 Sep 2011 16:01:55 +0000

not sure what your policy is on off-topic comments…..but i need help with assisted communication stuff if you’re up to it, or at least can point me in direction of where to find help. specifically i am thinking about using proloquo2go……we have an ipod touch that might work for it……

losing speech has been a problem more often recently. have tried to muddle through it……though using up too many spoons to do so.

not have time to look up on internet right now because not sure where to start, and we are behind on schoolwork……..

if you not up to helping we understand…….but hope its okay to at least ask…….

Athena

By: Danielle

Danielle — Thu, 15 Sep 2011 21:09:32 +0000

I agree on the psychology fail in “A Wizard Alone.” The author totally didn’t do her research on that one. What Darryl has got isn’t anything like autism; it’s more like some kind of weird dissociative thing that doesn’t really have an analogue in actual psychology. If you pretend she’s not trying to write about autism, it’s a good book; but the lack of knowledge about autism is pretty jarring–especially from an author who usually does her research very thoroughly.

Like you, I’m most fond of the books about the feline wizards–though any books that takes the wizards to alien planets has to be a close second. And Dairine’s computer creatures are so cool!

Take it easy, get some rest.

By: Pancho

Pancho — Thu, 15 Sep 2011 16:27:47 +0000

I sort of remember Tailchaser’s song and Book of Night with Moon. I used to be really big on reading fantasy novels when I was younger and I’m slowly starting to do it some more now when I have the time. But it’s been a while since I looked at either of those. Diane Duane was one of my favorite authors though, I loved her “young wizards” series. I have a big container of mostly nonfiction books that I lug around with me when I move and some her stuff is in there.

If you don’t mind me asking (and are actually able to get around to answering), what are some things you thought are better than in Tailchaser’s Song? I do seem to remember Tailchaser’s Song having very elaborate cultural stuff going, but I’m not sure if it wasn’t just certain ideas being imposed upon cats.

Maybe I shouldn’t be talking about this since it’s been a while since I’ve read any of these books.

I don’t really care about spoilers so I will probably read the thing you linked sometime, thank you for linking it.

By: urocyon

urocyon — Mon, 12 Sep 2011 05:26:20 +0000

Thanks for pointing these out. I’ve read some of her wizard books–we have, I think, the same anthology–but had forgotten about the cat wizard series which I’d wanted to check out. Definitely will now, in order!

I haven’t read Momo, either. A Wrinkle in Time and a couple of L’Engle’s others are going on the pick-up-to-reread list, too.

By: Andrea

Andrea — Sun, 11 Sep 2011 03:12:22 +0000

Don’t tax yourself too much. Just saying.

By: Lindsay

Lindsay — Fri, 09 Sep 2011 21:57:57 +0000

In reply to Amanda. Oh, that's too bad. I'll still read it if I can find a copy of it, though (it's not in my anthology!), because I kind of collect fiction with autistic characters.

By: Amanda

Amanda — Fri, 09 Sep 2011 21:37:55 +0000

Be warned that the guy in A Wizard Alone is only autistic in name. It's very much... like probably whatever the author was told about autism way back when she was a psych nurse instead of an author -- in the seventies. (And mind you, I once spotted a psych textbook from the mid-nineties whose only description of autism was a Bettelheim case study. So in the seventies... any information I ever found dating from back then was was very bad.) In fact, I've never (or very rarely, maybe) seen her mention developmental disabilities in her writing in a way that wasn't either inaccurate or offensive or both. (She's said a few things about fat that had me going o_O as well.) But I take what I can get, and while I don't love those parts of her books at all, I do love most of her books that I've read.

By: Lindsay

Lindsay — Fri, 09 Sep 2011 20:56:25 +0000

I’ll check them out, too — I like books with believable non-human characters.

My brother and sister loved Diane Duane’s wizard books when we were kids … I never read them, since we didn’t own them and my brother always hoarded them to himself when we would check them out from the library. We have an anthology of the first 4 or 5 of them now, so I will finally see what all the fuss was about!

(One of the later books in that series, A Wizard Alone, has an autistic protagonist. I want to read that one, too.)

By: sanabituranima

sanabituranima — Fri, 09 Sep 2011 18:52:55 +0000

:) I’ll put them on the almost infinite “to read” list.